September 28, 2024
Great news! Back in January we raised $21,975 to deliver medical supplies and automatic electronic defibrillators (AEDs) to frontline ambulances in Ukraine. It has taken several months, but finally we can report the delivery from Poland to Ukraine of 11 BeneHeart C1A AEDs and a BeneHeart D30 AED. These AEDs have been installed in frontline ambulances operated by the rescue service of the Red Cross of Ukraine.
We would like to again thank our many donors, and especially our Platinum Sponsors Wegmans and aTonalHits, our Silver Sponsors The Rochester Academy of Medicine, and our Bronze Sponsors Allison L. Giordano, MD and The Ukrainian Federal Credit Union for their incredible support in making this important delivery possible.
This past week, we received a very generous donation. Andrew Ragan, a retired Rochester area teacher, donated 270 lbs (123 kg) of medical supplies to the Ukraine Medical Relief Fund. These supplies include medical tube feeding formula that is used for patients who may have had a gastrostomy tube placed due to an injury and illness, and need a way to receive nutrition during their recovery. Also included are supplies to care for patients who have had a tracheostomy placed. A tracheostomy is an airway that is surgically placed in a patient’s neck that allows them to breathe if due to injury or illness they are not able to breathe for themselves.
We wanted to share with you some recent images of the delivery of toys to patients at the Kharkiv Regional Children’s Clinical Hospital, which we sent a couple of weeks ago.
We hope you find these pictures as heartwarming as we do. With bad news seemingly coming at us from all the corners of the globe, we and our donors are always looking for ways we can do something meaningful. Bringing a smile to the face of a hospitalized child is just one way we can do that.
The message from our canine volunteers is again really simple.
Children are children, no matter where they are. They need to play, go to school, make friends, be with their families, and live in peace.
The terrorist state continues to hold hostage thousands of Ukrainian children illegally transferred from their homes. No one will ever forget this.
In horror, we saw on October 7 how Putin’s friends in Tehran and Gaza all share something in common – the kidnapping of civilians including children as hostages. They will not be forgotten either.
Earlier this summer, we received a request from the O.O. Shalimov National Institute of Surgery and Transplant Medicine in Kyiv to help provide supplies of Total Parenteral Nutrition (TPN) for their patients. Many of their patients have suffered combat wounds and required surgery, and may not be able to eat and use their gut to absorb nutrients while recovering. TPN, you will recall, provides all the protein, sugars, and fats – as well as vitamins and minerals – that the body needs while healing.
This past week saw a major delivery of aid paid for by our donors, and delivered by our partners, Future For Ukraine Foundation. We provided four automated external defibrillators (AEDs) to ambulances in the Mykolaiv, Dnipro, and Zaporizhzhia regions. AEDs are medical devices that help patients experiencing cardiac arrest. The device analyzes the heart’s rhythm and if necessary can deliver an electrical shock to help re-establish a normal heart rhythm.
We also provided other medications and supplies to equip these ambulances to handle any number of emergencies. These include IV fluids, sedation medications, pain medications, and all kinds of other meds needed to treat trauma. The supplies include surgical forceps and laryngoscopes. All told, this was a delivery of $15,000 of medicines and supplies that are already in use saving lives in the frontline regions.
For a number of weeks, we have had several aid projects in the works nearing completion. And this last one has been a big one for deliveries – so we are a little behind with announcements!
The pediatric oncologists at the Kharkiv Children’s Hospital No.16 reached out requesting a trinocular microscope with camera to assist them in the diagnosis and treatment of pediatric cancers and other blood disorders. Working with our partners at Future For Ukraine foundation, we purchased a Levenhuk D870T clinical microscope, and we are pleased to announce it has been delivered and is in use!